


finiitrti, in its :^.*rESEnt aspcts niiii lUlnfiniis. 

A 

S E R M N 



PREACIIKI) 



ON FAST DAY, APRIL 0, 1854 



AT CAMBRIDGE, MASS. 



WILLIAM A'7' STEARNS, D. D 



BOSTON AND CAMBRIDl : 

JAMES MUNROE AND COMPANY. 

1854. 



)lnDrri|, in its ^ktmt iHsjirrts mil t\Mkm, 



SERMON 



I'REACIIED 



ON FAST DAY, APRIL 6, 185 4, 



AT CAMBRIDGE, MASS. 



^ 



A' 



WILLIAM A'^.'^ STEARNS, D. B, 



vToFCoT; 



BOSTON AND CAMBRIDGE: 
JAMES MUNKOE AND COMPANY. 

1854. 



"Never did there devolve on any generation of men higher trusts than now^ 
devolve upon us, for the preservation of this Constitution, and the harmony and 
peace of all who are to live under it." — Webster. 

" I have already intimated to you the dangers of parties in the State, with 
particular reference to the founding them on geographical discriminations. 
Let me now take a more comprehensive view and warn you, in the taost 
solemn manner against the baneful effects of the spirit of party generally." — 
Washington. 

" Thou hast multiplied the nation and not increased the joy." 

" Heu pietas, heu prisca fides! " 

" Discite justiciam moniti, et non temnere Divos." 

" £< incipient magni procedere menses^ 



4 

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1854, by 
JAMES MUNROE AND COMPANY, 

In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts. 






SERMON. 



Matth'sw 7 : 12. 

THF.UEFORF, ALL THINGS WHATSOKVEK YE WOULD THAT MKX SHOULD DO TO YOU, 
DO YE EVEN SO TO THEM, FOB THIS IS THE LAW AND THE PROIMIETS. 

I HAVE not selected this text for the purpose of a 
logical development of the principle it contains, but only 
as the most appropriate sentiment I could think of, to 
stand at the head of a discourse, in which the relations of 
individuals and of large bodies of men to each other are 
to be brought under review. It is the second of those 
two great laws which pervade the entire universe of 
accountable mind, and sura up the whole of duty. It in- 
cites to sympathy towards those who are wronged, to a 
candid estimation of persons whose conduct we condemn, 
and an nnselfish course as respects all mankind. Really 
adopted it would moderate, in most cases, the violence 
of dispute, give a just balance to statements aflecting 
character, and while it takes nothing from an honest in- 
dignation against injustice, it would lead to that fairness 
and considerateness in dealing with others which com- 
mends itself to conscience and secures the approbation 
of God. 



In the spirit of this text, I propose to speak this 
morning of American Slavery in its Present Aspects 
AND Relations. 

I must forewarn you that my discourse is of unusual 
length, but as it is an unusual subject, and we shall have 
no service in the afternoon, I hope you will tolerate it. 

In the spring of 1834, on the day of our annual Fast 
just twenty years ago, I took occasion to present my views 
on the subject of slavery, at that time just beginning, 
not only to agitate the country anew, but to threaten 
the harmony, if not the very existence of our churches. 
The entire moral sentiment of the North was then, as it 
is now, opposed to it. As a possible means of alleviating 
the evil, or at least as furnishing opportunities for a can- 
did consideration of it, the benevolence of the Eastern 
States cherished the American Colonization Society, 
while for this or other reasons, it found considerable 
favor at the South. 

In these circumstances, a new and almost frenzied 
anti-slavery sentiment suddenly sj^rung up among us, not 
only outrunning public sentiment, but heaping anathe- 
mas upon the alleged tolerance of northern freemen, 
even more than upon the southern holders of slaves. 
The leaders of this movement were chiefly men who de- 
nounced slavery, the churches, the ministry, the Sabbath, 
and nearly all the positive institutions of Christianity to- 
gether. Its spirit was a fiery spirit, blazing up here and 
there in the community, inflaming the minds of many ex- 
citable, but not often the most judicious, members of our 
churches, and threatening to overturn the very altars of 
God. I observed its approaches towards my own con- 
gregation, and took the opportunity I have mentioned 
to offer such remarks as I thought might tend to the 



benefit of the people under my pastoral care, fortifying 
them against impending dangers, and preserving a 
Christian moderation among them. 

I then stood on the old anti-slavery ground of 1787 
and 1820. I expressed my abhorrence of slavery as a 
system, and adopted as my own that strong language of 
Thomas Jefferson, which has since been so often quoted, 
who said that he trembled for his country when he re- 
mem^DCred that God is just, that the Almighty had no 
attributes which would take sides with us in opposition 
to this oppressed people, and uttered prophetic intima- 
tions of a possible change, at some future day, in the 
ascendency of races, and a terrible retribution. At the 
same time, I brought to view some apologetic circum- 
stances which might serve to mitigate the asperity of our 
feelings towards the South, and especially towards its 
godly ministers and Christians. I showed that undiscrim- 
inating invective, especially when uttered at such a 
distance from the scene of action, could have no possible 
tendency to remove the evil, while at home, nothing but 
strifes, the division of churches, and a spirit totalh^ anti- 
christian could be anticipated from it. I urged can- 
did reflection, moderation, charity. I proposed that we 
should present ourselves before our southern brethren 
with an open, benevolent countenance, with earnest but 
generous words. I was for coming to them with some 
such language as this : " Your flithers and ours were en- 
gaged in the accursed traffic of slavery together. You 
took more of the sinews and souls of men, we took much 
of the money for which souls and sinews were exchanged. 
Let us now make common cause, and in the name of 
hvmianity and of God, unite in good faith and in a fair 
participation of sacrifices, to limit the evil at once, and 



6 



take measures for its earliest practicable removal. Mean- 
while, we propose to fulfil our constitutional pledges to 
you — but we can, on no account, do any thing to in- 
crease or perpetuate a wrong which we believe is offen- 
sive to God, and which threatens the existence of the 
nation." 

After the lapse of time, during which great changes 
have taken place in the Old World and the New, and the 
nation has been shaken once and again by this subject 
as by an earthquake, my position is substantially what 
it was twenty years ago. I feel no more complacency 
in slavery, notwithstanding the compromises on which 
pubhc sentiment has been constrained to settle, and no 
more disposition to sympathize with them who would 
sunder the Union, or " drive the ploughshare through 
the churches," in rash attempts to remove it. 

Since 1834, though I have often found it necessary to 
make some public allusion to the subject, I have never 
devoted to it a single entire discourse. I have never 
mentioned it in my preaching on the Sabbath in a way 
to disturb, unnecessarily, the feelings of those who did 
not altogether accord with me, and rarely at all, except 
to pray that oppression may cease and universal freedom, 
education, piety and fraternity take its place. 

I present my views to-day on slavery, in some of its 
present aspects and relations, because I would contribute 
what little light I possess towards a just estimation of this 
terrible subject ; because also it may be well for a people 
and convenient for a minister that his position on such 
a question should be understood, and because recent 
events seem to call on those who occupy the high places 
of moral influence for an expression of opinion. Let it 
be understood, however, that I speak for nobody but 



myself. If my words should meet with your approbation, 
I shall be gratified. If they do not, while you accord to 
me an honest intention, you can correct by your own 
judgments whatever you think to be erroneous in mine. 

As a basis for intelligent remark, let us take a brief 
historical view of American slavery. 

When Jamestown was settled in 1608, slaveholding in 
some form was practised nearly the whole world over. 
To the early Virginia planters it was considered a neces- 
sity and a matter of course. They were at first supplied 
with bond laborers from the mother country. These 
were not negroes, but white men, convicts, captives taken 
in war, poor debtors, and other poor people who were 
either kidnapped for the purpose or induced to emigrate 
and serve in this capacity for a time. In all these cases 
the term of service was limited. But within the limits 
specified, the laborers were bought and sold as cattle. 
The jolanters soon found it for their interest rather to 
repress than to encourage this species of emigration, and 
had it not been for the African trade, the white bond- 
men would have become early amalgamated with the 
free population, and long before our Revolution, Vir- 
ginia would have been a free colony. 

The first introduction of negroes took place in 1620, 
a few months before the Plymouth Colon}- landed in 
America. They were brought over by a Dutch man-of- 
war, and twenty in number were ofiered for sale. Thirty 
years after this first importation of African slaves, there 
were not more of them in the whole Colony, than one to 
fifty white inhabitants. For slavery, as it now exists, we 
are greatly indebted to the avarice of Great Britain. 
In 1662, " a Company of Royal Adventurers of England 
trading into Africa" was constituted, for the express 



purpose of procuring negroes from Africa to be em- 
ployed on the plantations of the new world. The 
manifestos for subscriptions set forth that this trade was 
formerly attended with "profit and honor" to the nation; 
that his majesty's subjects had been disturbed in the 
trade by the people of other countries, and that his ma- 
jesty's dominions in America were suffering from want 
of a supply of this class of laborers. It was proposed to 
obtain three thousand negroes from the coast of Africa 
as soon as possible, and as many more, from time to 
time, as could be sold to the planters at reasonable rates. 
The main object was to improve colonial agriculture 
and increase English commerce, both with the coasts of 
Africa and America. A list of the Royal Adventurers 
has been preserved. It is a curious and mournful relic, 
considering the noble signatures it contains, of persons 
who seem to have been unconscious of the mighty wrong 
they were committing. It commences thus : — 

« The King's Most Excellent Majesty. 

The Queen's Majesty. 

His Royal Highness the Duke of York. 

His Highness Prince Rupert. 

The Duke of Albermarle. 

The Earl of St. Albans. 

The Earl of Anglesy, Lord Arlington," &c.* 

The trade was carried on with great vigor and profit 
for a series of years. Though many of the colonists 
were eager to obtain slaves, and many others engaged in 
the business from mere mercenary motives, yet it must 
be confessed that the colonial governments more fre- 
quently threw obstacles in its way, than favored it. No 
less than twenty-three acts were passed by the Virginia 

* See Declarations of the Company of Eoyal Adventurers, Lib. H., Col. 



legislatures, beginning in 1699, for the express purpose 
of limiting the importation of slaves, by the imposition 
of duties. But no acts of this kind ever met with the 
royal favor. On the contrarj'-, the commerce was stimu- 
lated to the hio-hest deerree. Lands were offered to 
settlers in the West Indies on condition that the proprie- 
tors would purchase and employ a prescribed number of 
slaves. The American colonists often remonstrated, 
and sometimes boldly and earnestly, against this traffic. 
They feared that this class of the population would be- 
come so numerous as to prevent a higher order of in- 
habitants from settling among them, and to jeopardize 
their own liberties. They seem also to have perceived 
that commerce in the souls of men w^as to some 
extent an outrage on human nature. In 1772, a very 
humble memorial was sent by them, beseeching the 
king, "to remove those restraints on his majesty's gov- 
ernors of the Colony, which inhibit their assenting to 
such laws as might check so very pernicious a com- 
merce ; " declaring also that the trade has long been 
considered one "of great inhumanity," and "under its 
present encouragement," retarding " the settlement of 
the colonies wdth more useful inhabitants," and dan- 
gerous " to the very existence of his majesty's domin- 
ions in America."* No answer, so far as can be ascer- 
tained, was ever given to this earnest and reasonable 
petition. The same relative feeling on the subject con- 
tinued down to the Revolution. 

In the Northern States, though many individuals 
engaged in this execrable traffic, public sentiment was 
still more strongly opposed to it. When Thomas Keyser 
and James Smith, " the latter a member of the church 

* See Walsh's Appeal from the Judgments of Great Britain. 

2 



10 



in Boston/' brought a cargo of slaves to our shores in 
1645, there was an universal outcr.y against them as 
malefactors and murderers. They were charged with 
the crime of manstealing, and the negroes were sent 
back at the public expense. Still in process of time, 
slavery found its way into the New England as well 
as the Southern States, and became to some extent 
domesticated among us. It is not unfair, however, to 
observe that through the whole country, public senti- 
ment rather repressed than encouraged this traffic in 
men, and that the New "World was far behind the Old in 
entailing the curse of slavery upon us. Grahame, the 
historian, in a pamphlet published at London in 1842, 
entitled "Who is to Blame?" disputes this fact. But 
after considerable examination, I think it capable of be- 
ing demonstrated. Mr. Jefferson was no falsifier, when 
in his first draft of the Declaration of Independence, he 
said, " He (the king of England) has waged civil war 
against human nature itself, violating its most sacred 
rights of life and liberty, in the persons of a distant 
people who never offended him ; captivating and carry- 
ing them into slavery in another hemisphere, or to 
incur a miserable death in their transportation thither. 
This piratical warfare, the opprobrium of infidel powers, 
is the warflire of the Christian king of Great Britain : 
determined to keep open a market where men should 
be bought and sold, he prostituted his negative for 
suppressing every legislative attempt to prohibit or to 
restrain this execrable commerce." 

I take occasion to say here as I may not have another 
so good an opportunity, that while it is not of import- 
ance to apportion the "exact measure of guilt connected 
with the African slave trade between this country and 



11 



Great Britain, the course taken, for some years past in 
England, respecting American slavery, whose popula- 
tion has been kept incessantly inflamed on the subject, 
by persons bearing the name but some of them having 
little of the spirit of Americans, can have no other ten- 
dency than to exasperate and produce retort. It is not 
in me to say aught maliciously of that noble nation. 
The father-land of our fathers — the country of Shakes- 
pere and Bacon, of Barrow and Milton, I am proud of 
her constitutional liberties, and her high position in the 
scale of powerful nations. Wilberforce and Clarkson 
are household words of honor among us. Every boyish 
heart in our school rooms has bounded with exultation, 
from the days of Cowper till now, at the words " we 
have no slaves in England" — "they touch our soil, that 
moment they are free." But the English populace 
should know what many of its cultivated minds suffi- 
ciently understand, that information ought ever to pre- 
cede the passing of judgments, and that charity and for- 
bearance, rather than insolence and invective are the 
mighty dissolvents of that deadly concretion which our 
parentage has entailed upon us, and under the miseries 
of which our nation has groaned from the beginning. 

At the time of the Revolution, the leading men of the 
South as well as of the North, almost universally looked 
upon slavery as involving a great moral wrong, an 
anomaly in our institutions, a dangerous political evil, 
and only to be tolerated for a time. It was in this state 
of public sentiment, that the compromises of the Con- 
stitution were confirmed. Though compromises which 
ought to stand till the two great compromising parties 
mutually consent to their removal, they were never 
intended for all coming generations. They were framed 



12 

as the necessity of the times. The words "slave" and 
"slavery" were nowhere introduced into them. Mr. 
Madison, himself a slaveholder, o^Dposed the introduc- 
tion of those terms, on the ground that he did not wish 
to see an acknowledgment in the Constitution of the 
United States that there could be. property in men. 
Arrangements were made to put an end forever to the 
foreign slave-trade, dealing in which has long since 
been declared by our government to be piracy. In 
1787, under the old confederation, an ordinance was 
passed excluding slavery from all the territory north- 
west of the Ohio River, that is all the territory over 
which the Congress of the United States then had any 
control. This ordinance securing that great territory 
to freedom forever, received the vote of every State in 
the Union. The entire South was in its favor, but a 
single individual and he a northern man voted against 
it. Here, then, we have the sentiment of the country, 
at the time of the Revolution, respecting slavery. 

Not many years, however, passed away before a 
change of feeling began to be apparent on the subject, 
especially at the South. In 1802, the rich cotton lands 
of Alabama and Mississippi were ceded by Georgia to 
the United States, and no proviso excluding slavery was 
applied to them. In 1803, the government of the 
United States purchased a vast territory from France, 
generally known as the Louisiana purchase. It included 
what are now the States of Louisiana, Arkansas and Mis- 
souri, and the extensive region of Nebraska and Kansas 
now in dispute. In 1819, Florida was ceded to the 
United States. These territories came in without re- 
strictions. They were specially devoted neither to 
slavery nor to freedom. The time for fixing their 



13 

future character by legislative enactment had not yet 
come. 

The first great contest between the North and South 
took place in 1819-1820. It arose on the question of 
authorizing Missouri to form a Constitution preparatory 
to admission into the Union, the North insisting that if 
received at all, it must be on conditions which would 
eventually put an end to slavery within its bounds ; the 
South demanding that no pledges of the kind should be 
exacted. The excitement was great ; it pervaded the 
country, and wore for a time a most threatening aspect. 
I have a most vivid recollection of it, though then quite 
young. This is not the time or place for details. Suffice 
it to say, the dispute was settled by a compromise, now 
known as the Missouri compromise. Missouri was to be 
admitted into the Union, without prohibition of slavery 
within her bounds, and as a compensation to the North, 
an additional clause was introduced into the bill, forever 
excluding slavery from all territory belonging to the 
Louisiana purchase, north of 36°, 30', north latitude. It 
is in these words: "And be it further enacted, that in 
all that territory ceded by France to the United States, 
under the name of Louisiana, which lies north of 3 6°, 30', 
north latitude, excepting only such part thereof as is 
included within the limits of the State contemplated by 
this act, slavery and involuntary servitude, otherwise 
than in the punishment of crimes whereof the party 
shall have been duly convicted, shall be and is hereby 
forever prohibited." Missouri was received the following 
year. 

In 1845 the annexation of Texas took place, and 
nearly the whole of that immense country, in which 
slavery already existed was devoted under national 



14 



guarantees to the slave interest. All that part of it 
which lies south of the parallel 36°, 30', the line of the 
old Missouri compromise extended westward, was con- 
signed, bj permission, to slavery. 

Our last great accession of territory was the result of 
the Mexican war. It was obtained by conquest and 
purchase, and was added to the Union without restric- 
tion as to slavery. Congress, on this occasion, declined 
extending the Missouri compromise line any further 
towards the Pacific Ocean. California formed a Consti- 
tution for herself, excluding slavery, and was admitted 
into the Union as a free State. It was this and other 
questions connected with it, that shook the country so 
fearfully in 1850. 

It is now insisted that the legislation of that year is 
inconsistent with the legislation of 1820, and that be- 
cause California has been admitted as a free State, 
though a portion of its territory lies below 36°, 30', 
therefore the whole region of Nebraska, most of which 
is north of the designated line, and was secured to free- 
dom, for a consideration, thirty years before, should be 
opened to slavery. In other words that because Con- 
gress refused to sanction a new compromise, on the hue 
of 36°, 30', in 1850, therefore the old compromise of 
1820, which had reference to an entirely different ter- 
ritory, has become inoperative and void, and ought to 
be annulled. 

Not to dwell on the fallacy of this reasoning at 
present, it is obvious that a very great change has 
taken place since the Revolution in public sentiment, 
especially at the South, on the subject of slavery. Then 
it was confessed to be an evil, its progress was carefully 
restricted; and its ultimate removal was anticipated and 



15 



desired. The same general feeling continued for sev- 
eral 3^ears afterward. Nor was it sentiment without 
practice. It Avas estimated by the distinguished editor 
of the Commentaries of Blackstone, Judge Tucker of 
Virginia,* that during the interval between 1782 and 
1791, a period of only nine years, ten thousand slaves 
obtained freedom by voluntary manumission, in Vir- 
ginia, under authority of her legislature. Now, on the 
contrary, the system is often defended by southern pol- 
iticians as beneficial to the State, and sometimes by 
southern ministers of the gospel, as being sanctioned by 
the Old Testament and the New. Measures are taken 
to secure its increase and perpetuity. The desire for 
new lands, adapted to slave labor, is insatiable ; and to 
obtain them, men in high positions seem willing to run 
the risk of a civil rupture, which if it comes will deluge 
the country in blood. 

Three things have been chiefly instrumental in pro- 
ducino; this chano-e. First and foremost is the increased 
demand for cotton and remarkable success in its culti- 
vation. It is a noticeable fact that the first seeds of 
this great southern staple were sown in 1621, the year 
after the first twenty African slaves were sold in the 
Colony. The progress of the cotton crop was slow. In 
1791 the whole export from the United States was sixty- 
four bags of three hundred pounds each.t According 
to the last Patent Office Reports, there were exported 
from the United States in 1821, 124,893,405 pounds; 
in 1849, 1,026,602,269 pounds; that is, above a thou- 
sand millions pounds more in 1849 than in 1821 ; or an 
increase in the surplus production of cotton, above the 
home consumption, of more than eight hundred per 

* Walsh's Appeal. t Am. En. 



16 

centum in twenty-eight years. The average crop at 
the present time is put down at three thousand bales of 
four hundred pounds each, or 1,200,000,000 pounds. It 
is thought that the production of this article and the de- 
mand for it must continue to increase for many years. 
There are immense regions of choice cotton land yet 
uncultivated, particularly in Georgia, Alabama, Missis- 
sippi and Texas, and a prospect that the exportation of 
this article will become constantly greater until its value 
reaches $300,000,000 per annum. This has been, is, 
and is to be, the grand staple of the Southern States. 
White laborers could not probably live on the cotton 
plantations of the remote South. Colored men from the 
free States would not go there. Manumitted negroes 
might not easily be controlled, in any considerable num- 
bers, or made to work, in this kind of agriculture. 
There is, therefore, a most powerful inducement to dis- 
courage emancipation, increase the number of slaves 
and make the system of bond labor perpetual. Why 
should not the desire of improving one's worldly con- 
dition blunt the moral sensibility and pervert the 
judgment on this subject as it does on others? No 
doubt the cotton trade has had this effect. 

Another cause of the change, partly produced by the 
foregoing, is a desire of political preponderance. When 
slavery was looked upon as a temporary affair, there was 
no strong southern sentiment against emancipation, 
whenever a State should desire to attempt it. No mat- 
ter if two-thirds of the states should be free, the remain- 
der would have little to fear from national legislation. 
Now the slaveholding interest struggles, if not for decided 
ascendency, at least to preserve the balance of power. 
To meet the rapid growth of the free states, resulting 



17 



from the abundance of every thing necessary to support 
life, and from emigration, new cotton lands must be ob- 
tained, new slave states formed, and the numbers, in the 
Senate at least, from the slave states, be kept equal to 
the numbers from the free. It has become with the 
South, as they consider it, almost a struggle for national 
existence. 

This cause has been rendered more powerful by the 
excitement at the North on the subject of abolition. 
Besides that love of freedom and hatred of oppression, 
which pervades this section of the country, and which 
embraces rational views, and confines its philanthropic 
eflforts to practicable schemes, in reference to the slave, 
a wild f^maticism has sprung up among us. It has 
poured forth its floods of wormwood and gall indiscrimi- 
nately, in every form of invective which language can 
utter. The South has become alarmed; efforts for 
emancipation have been exchanged to efforts for self- 
preservation ; even the Christian sentiment of the South 
has said, the only course of safety for ourselves and 
our colored people with us, is in a firm and united 
conservatism which shall yield nothing to northern pres- 
sure till the temj)est has gone past. 

There are those also at the South who have been in- 
fluenced in this change of feeling by the degraded and 
miserable condition of the free blacks among them, and 
by the dangers which must result from having large 
numbers of them in their midst, associating freely with 
the slave population. 

These are the leading causes which have brought about 

such an unfavorable change in the feelings of southern 

politicians and southern Christians, in reference to the 

manumission of slaves. Of these several causes, the first 

■ 3 



18 

mentioned, viz. the increased demand for cotton and its 
successful cultivation, stands foremost, and is at the 
foundation. 

This general review and exhibition of causes, prepares 
us for the question, in what estimation should American 
slavery be held ? 

Slavery may be considered by itself, or in connection 
with the evils which are generally inseparable from it. 
Considered by itself, is slaveholding necessarily and in 
all cases sinful ? In other words, is it not possible for a 
person to stand in the legal relation of master to a slave, 
without offending God thereby ? I am ready to answer 
in the affirmative, though in my opinion such an answer 
should neither lessen our abhorrence of slavery nor our 
desire for its removal. I can imagine many cases in 
which it would be clearly merciful, in accordance with 
the sentiment of our text, perfectly right, for a person 
to sustain this relation for a time. To say, that to hold 
a slave under any circumstances and for ever so short a 
period, is sinful, is to speak extravagantly and in a way 
which will never commend itself to the consciences of 
them who are thus denounced. Nothing is gained, but 
much lost by attempting to prove too much. The bat- 
tle is fought, in such cases, on a, remote abstraction or 
exception, and the available positions of the enemy are 
left unharmed. Let us concede, then, that it may be 
possible, under peculiar circumstances and for a limited 
period, for a person to stand in the relation of master to 
a slave, and for a body politic to uphold such a relation 
without committing sin thereby. If it were not so, we 
must condemn the practice of the patriarchs and the in- 
stitutions of Moses, as involving sin in the founder of the 
institutions and the authors of that practice. The cases 



19 

supposed, however, are only exceptions, and exceptions 
usually strengthen the general rule. We come then to 
slaveholding as a system. 

There are those who affirm boldly that slaveholding, 
even as a system for modern times, is sanctioned by the 
sacred Scriptures. This is not my opinion. But did it 
not exist under the old dispensation, and did it not re- 
ceive the approbation of God ? It existed, and was 
tolerated, and regulated by civil statute, but not com- 
manded nor as I think, strictly speaking, approved by 
the author of the Mosaic law. So polygamy existed, 
and was tolerated and regulated, but not commanded, 
nor really approved under the same law. As the latter 
was suffered, not because it was right in itself, but, as 
our Saviour teaches, on account of the hardness of 
men's hearts, or in other words, as the best thing that 
could be done under the circumstances, and among a 
people so long and thoroughly habituated to its prac- 
tice, so I suppose it was with slavery. It was not in- 
stituted as desirable in itself, but permitted in the cir- 
cumstances under limitations. It was not practicable 
at that moment to do it entirely away — it teas possible 
to restrain it, and mitigate its hardships, and overrule it 
for good. The lawgiver preferred practicabihty to ab- 
straction, to do the best thing which the circumstances 
allowed, rather than submit to a more unflivorable alter- 
native. 

But suppose for argument's sake that slaveholding 
was established, as a positive institution for the Hebrews, 
by the divine Lawgiver. Such a fact could not properly 
be adduced in justification of slaveholding for coming 
ages. The most which could be inferred from it is, that 
in certain peculiar circumstances existing in ancient 



20 



times, and within the limits of a single nation, the prac- 
tice could exist without the commission of sin on the 
part of those who engaged in it. The conclusion would 
be much too broad for the premises, if we should aver 
that because God authorised a system of slavery, several 
thousand years ago, for a particular nation, therefore, he 
had given his sanction to similar systems for all coming 
time. Morality is progressive, not indeed in its immu- 
table principles, but in its developments and applica- 
tions. Wars and fightings are wrong in themselves; 
they proceed from the unhallowed lusts of men, and 
before the termination of the Redeemer's kingdom on 
earth must wholly cease, and yet in an early age, and 
under peculiar circumstances wars and fightings, and 
these too not for defence but aggression, have been 
divinely required. To justify modern slavery by the 
slavery under the Mosaic law, as well as to justify 
offensive war in modern times by the " holy wars" of the 
Hebrews, we must show that the cases are parallel to 
each other, and that what was right in the one case 
would be right in the other. So much by way of con- 
cession. I do not, however, consider Hebrew slavery 
as an institution established for its inherent excellence, 
but as a vicious system, which it was necessary to tol- 
erate for a time. I look upon it as a malignant tumor 
on the body politic which could be checked, and in 
progress of years perhaps cured, but not suddenly re- 
moved without peril of life. 

What shall we say of the New Testament ? Did our 
Saviour any where, in so many words, prohibit or 
denounce slavery ? Certainly he did not. Did the apos- 
tles condemn it, in express terms ? They did not. It 
existed in their times, and in oppressive forms. It ex- 



21 



isted among the early Christians. Slaveholding, so far as 
we can learn, was not a barrier against admission to the 
churches, and the apostles have even set forth the recip- 
rocal duties of masters and slaves towards each other. 
Does it follow then, that the New Testament sanctions 
slavery? By no means. Does it not contain great 
principles which must eventually sweej) it from the face 
of the earth ? How can I admit the sentiment of our 
text, and yet deny liberty forever to my fellow men ? 
How can I love my neighbor as myself, and yet consign 
him and his posterity to hopeless bondage ? Is it not 
manifest, in the spirit and on the face of the gospel, that 
the religion of Jesus was intended for the elevation of 
all classes of men, bringing the human family into one 
great brotherhood, in which each should do to others as 
he would that others should do to him ? So the church 
in past ages has generally understood the will of Christ, 
and with all its corruptions, it has been the great 
defender and deliverer of men from their oppressors. 
So true is this, that an impression prevailed for a time 
in the American colonies, that a Christian could not 
be a slave, and that to baptize a bondman would be to 
give him his freedom. 

How then shall we account for it, that slavery is not 
forbidden in so many words ? We account for it from 
the fact that Christ was the wisest of reformers, and did 
not make direct attacks on governments and institu- 
tions, to defeat perhaps the very ends he had in view ; 
but contented himself with efforts to regenerate indi- 
vidual character, and to establish principles which in 
the course of their development, and in the progress of 
ages would regenerate society. Polygamy, indeed, he 
denounced in form, as the principles which must finally 



22 



destroy it, though they exist, were not so obvious; but 
despotism and slavery, both of which are abhorrent to 
the spirit of his gospel, he did not denounce in express 
words, but left them to the counter-working power and 
spirit of the principles of his religion. 

Come now to natural reason and conscience. Bring 
slaveholding to this bar. Does the law of our moral 
nature justify it? The idea of seizing upon a human 
being, an immortal man with all his capabilities, 
thoughts, feelings, created as he is in the image of God, 
the brother and in natural rights the equal of other 
men, and when charged with no fault, buying and 
selling, and working him as a brute — working him not 
for Ms advantage, but our own — is monstrous, and finds 
no countenance in the law written on the heart. 

But take slavery with its usual concomitants, and how 
immense its miseries! How it degrades the immortal 
man ! Bought and held as property, controlled for 
another's benefit, deprived of the means of education, 
denied the usual rights of a man, the marriage institution 
reduced to a nullity, liable to have his children torn from 
him by violence, exposed to the tyranny of an unreason- 
able master or mistress — how painful is such a condition 
to contemplate ! Tell me not of the fidelity and kind- 
ness of many a Christian slaveholder — tell me not how 
careful high-minded planters are to keep families togeth- 
er, and how well these dependent ones are often loved 
and treated. Undoubtedly many a mistress is as tender 
as a mother, and many a master bears in his bosom a 
compassionate heart. But look into the slave markets — 
see the manacled victims bound they know not whither ; 
cast your eyes over the cotton fields of Alabama and 
Texas ; inquire of the old men and old women for the 



23 

fate of their children ; see how the bloom of those young 
girls is consumed ; how those sick ones Hiint under urg- 
ings, if not the lash ; and how yonder happy family is 
all broken up in a day, by the coming in of some iron- 
hearted trader ; and towards a systeni under which such 
things are common, you can have no feelings but those 
of horror and disgust. I do not wonder at the intense 
abhorrence of it which exists among us. I confess that 
when I look only at one side of the case, when I have 
" considered all the oppressions that are done under the 
sun ; and beheld the tears of such as were oppressed, 
and they had no comforter ; and on the side of their 
oppressors was power ; but they had no comforter," I 
have " praised the dead which were already dead more 
than the living which are yet alive." The idea of 
droves of negroes, human beings, chained together two 
and two; of mothers bereaved of their children, into 
whose soul the won has entered — the curses and the 
lash — they fill me with grief and indignation ; the 
blood rushes to my heart, and my heart to my throat, 
with a sensation which is intolerable. I loathe such a 
system. Away with it ; it is a system of abominations ; 
how can the bright sun in the heavens look upon it 
without eclipse ! 

But are there no palliating circumstances which should 
inspire us with feelings of charity towards the South ? 
If there are, both common justice and the principle em- 
braced in our text require me to notice them. What we 
want on the subject is not indiscriminate censure, but 
the truth. Northern denunciations have too often been 
sweeping, hard and defamatory, tending to exasperate 
rather than convince. Candor in admitting all reason- 
able excuse gives your words power, where apologies 
fail. 



24 

There are such circmnstaiices. Slavery was not in- 
troduced into the country by the present generation 
of masters. It is an evil entailed upon them. They 
find it intertwisted with and grown in upon their 
national and domestic existence. They were brought 
up in it, and never have learned any other mode of 
living. Their climate, the nature of their soil, their 
methods of cultivation, the inferiority and dependence 
of the negro race, the affection which often exists 
between master and slave, have all a tendency to prevent 
the full action of conscience against the system. 

It must also be confessed that there are great difficul- 
ties in the way of sudden emancipation. What is to be 
done with these vast multitudes of semi-barbarians, unac- 
customed to liberty, uneducated, incapable of providing 
for themselves ? Are they capable of self-government ? 
Could they found or sustain political institutions? Would 
it be in the power of any police to control them ? What 
would become of them ? What would become of the 
white race in the anarchy and license which must follow? 
Is amalgamation possible ? If so, it must be the work 
of time. But is not the idea horrible ? Shall the man- 
umitted slaves be sent away by thousands to the free 
states ? Will the free states receive them ? Will Ohio, 
New York, Massachusetts receive them? Here is a 
difficulty — and it has seemed to many so insurmounta- 
ble, that though friends of emancipation, they have 
given up all attempts to secure it in despair. There are 
southern Christians, southern ministers of the gospel, of 
as much benevolence and piety as any of you, who con- 
scientiously think that immediate emancipation would 
be an evil and a sin ; perilous to the whites, and unjust 
and cruel to the bondmen under their care. They con- 



25 

tent themselves, therefore, with endeavors to ameUorate 
the condition of the slaves, to secure to them an in- 
crease of advantages, to prevent the violent sejDaration 
of families, to maintain the marriage institution in- 
violable among them, and to fit them -for a world where 
all are brethren, and into which slavery can never 
come. 

I have endeavored, in these remarks, to do justice to 
the condition and feelings of the southern masters. I 
know that there are humane and conscientious men 
among them — that many of this class are sorely 
pressed on this subject, by the circumstances in which 
the}^ are placed. They have no complacency in the 
slave s^'stem, and wish it could be annihilated forever. 
But they neither know what to do, not what to advise. 
Some of you, to be sure, at this distance, far away from 
the scene of embarrassment, pressed by none of these 
difficulties, out of the reach of any evils which might 
follow sudden emancipation, and called to make no sac- 
rifices and take no responsibility in the case, think 
yourselves capable of directing what should be done. 
You declaim loudly and denounce indiscriminately, and 
insist that every yoke shall be broken, though the 
heavens come down on our heads. But sober, wise 
and thinking men, Uving in the midst of. inherited 
slavery, are often at their wits' ends on the question, 
how shall we dispose of it ? 

I have endeavored, as I said, to do justice to the 
South. And I am willinsi: for the sake of the true men 
and patriots it contains — notwithstanding there are 
so many who hold on upon slaver}^ with a relentless 
grasp — to leave the odious system, for the present, 
in the states where it exists, and where Congress has 
4 



26 

no power over it, to the wisdom and philanthropy found 
among those most immediately affected by it, trusting 
that the religion of Jesus, the progress of free prin- 
ciples throughout the earth, kind expostulation and 
argument, instead of insulting invective, from the North, 
together with other causes which Providence has already 
put in motion, will eventually secure the long wished 
for freedom. 

Let it now be noticed, on the other hand, that these 
palliations belong only to states in which slavery has 
already become a settled system. They do not apply at 
all to new territory whose virgin soil has never been 
polluted by the sweat of a slave, still less to lands 
which have been forever pledged by solemn agreement 
to freedom. They all have reference to a state of mind, 
in which slavery is realized as a national and social 
curse, l^ut to which no safe means of its removal are 
apparent. Slavery as a system, tolerated only from the 
necessities of the case, is an entirely different thing 
from slavery upheld as a desirable arrangement, to be 
extended and perpetuated. When you come to legis- 
late for the indefinite spread and perpetuati^ of it, the 
whole question is changed. Apologies have no rele- 
vancy. Just grounds of charity vanish. The spirit of 
the Revolution, which was a spirit of universal freedom, 
gives place to a spirit of semi-national despotism. The 
times of the first Pharaoh return upon us. The cu- 
pidity which tore the Africans from their home on 
another continent, and which is now denounced by all 
civilized nations under heaven, seems at this late day, 
by such efforts, to be more than half justified. Excuses 
become intolerable, and a solemn protest, in the name 
of justice and before God, is demanded by every right 



27 

minded patriot. Just so far as any man or class of men 
wish to extend slavery, whether from avarice or a desire 
for political predominance, they are to be looked upon 
as guilty of a mighty wrong, and provoking the ven- 
geance of heaven. I will not say that the vast acces- 
sions of slave territory which we have made since the 
formation of the Constitution, are all the result of a 
desire to perpetuate and extend the odious institution ; 
or on the part of the northern politicians, to secure 
favor in a quarter whence cometh promotion ; for it is 
the prerogative of another to judge men's motives. But 
I do say that just so far as individuals or masses have 
been actuated by such desires, treason has been com- 
mitted against the country, against humanity and against 
God. And well may we tremble when we consider the 
oppressions of the old nations and who it is that has 
dashed them in pieces. 

This brings me to recent events. A bill has recently 
been brought into Congress for the repeal of that com- 
promise law, by which the whole territory of Nebraska 
and Kansas was secured to freedom forever. The 
measure was hurried through the Senate, and passed by 
a large majority, and has just been arrested for a season 
in its passage through the House. It took the country 
by surprise, no one demanded it, no existing excitement 
was to be allayed by it, no man was prepared for it, the 
nation was struck mute before it. Scarcely yet has its 
outcry of indignation begun to be heard. But voices 
are coming up like the noise of many waters, saying : 
" Oh, do not this abominable thing which our soul 
hatetli ! " And the chorus of voices will swell on, till to 
the excited imagination of them who would perpetrate 
the wrong, the fingers of a spirit hand will be seen on 



28 

the wall, writing as of old, " thou art weighed in the 
balances and art found wanting." 

The object of this bill is to form those vast regions 
into territorial organizations, and in doing this, to repeal 
the Missouri Compromise Act, so far as the exclusion of 
slavery is concerned, from the country north of the par- 
allel of north latitude, 36°, 30', and thus to remove all 
hindrances to the ingress of a slave population. It is a 
great country, situated in the very heart of the North 
American continent, sufficient in extent for an empire, 
being in area, it is said, fifty times as large as the State 
of Vermont. It has a fine climate, is rich in agricultural 
resources, is capable of sustaining an immense popula- 
tion, and may have in time a very controlling influence 
on the destinies of the nation. It has, moreover, been 
secured to freedom by formal public arrangements, by a 
price agreed to and paid, for all coming time. It is now 
proposed to annul this compromise, so far as the freedom 
of these regions is concerned, and open them to slavery. 

The proposition has been brought forward without any 
seeming necessity for it. Territorial organizations are not 
needed there, and in the ordinary course of things, would 
not be for a considerable time to come. One large por- 
tion of the territory has been devoted to the Indians 
under solemn national guarantees. In all the rest of it, 
there are not, it is supposed, fifteen hundred inhabi- 
tants of any description, and not intelligent settlers 
enough to carry on the simplest territorial government. 
The bill is presented in every respect prematurely. It 
agitates the nation without any necessity. The whole 
country has been kindled into a blaze, not from any 
accident of fire, but as it were by an incendiary's torch. 
We have just passed through a great national crisis con- 



29 



nected with this terrible subject of slavery. It shook 
the whole country. It impeded the common action of 
legislation for successive Congresses, and stopped the 
wheels of government so far as its usual purposes are 
concerned, for the greater part of a year. It cost the 
lives of three statesmen, than whom America has never 
had three nobler sons, or at least hastened them to the 
grave. A chief magistrate of the nation fell before its 
exacting responsibilities. It was a time of recrimination, 
of passion. The ship of state labored in the storm, and 
its boldest pilots feared a wreck. Those awful days had 
gone past. Peace, fraternal regard, prosperity, were 
rapidly coming back. Nearly all the great questions 
res-pecting slavery as a national interest, seemed to be 
settled. To the surprise of the country and of the world, 
in an instant, at the waving of the wand of a single 
magician, the tempest has burst upon us again with 
redoubled fury. An act is threatened which, if con- 
summated, will give a blow to the Union from which, 
so far as human foresight can perceive, it will never 
recover. 

It is pretended that the compromises of 1850, contain 
a principle which contradicts and annuls the compromise 
of 1820. Miserable sophism! I do not profess to be a 
lawyer. I belong to the 3,050 New England ministers 
who do not understand public affairs; but common sense 
teaches me that the act of 1820, w^hich was from its 
nature irrepealable, a compact between two parties for 
so much present advantage on the one side, and so much 
future advantage on the other; the conditions of the 
compact having been completely fulfiled on the one 
side, and remaining to be fulfiled on the other, cannot 
be destroyed by the acts of 1850, passed long after the ir- 



30 

revocable fulfilment of all the conditions on the one side, 
and before the conditions had been fulfiled on the other ; 
Especially when no mention is made in the acts of 1850 
of any repeal or possibility of repeal, or hidden principle 
tending to repeal of the act of 1820, and that if the acts 
of 1850 are contradictory (which cannot be shown, as 
they relate to a different subject,) to the act of 1820, the 
last in point of time, will be nullified by the first in point 
of time, and not the first by the last. The amount due 
the southern side of the agreement has been sacredly 
and entirely paid ; place the northern side on equal 
footing, and then we may talk of new bargains. It is 
like this: two boys have a jack-knife and a quart of shag- 
barks in common. They agree to divide. James takes 
the shagbarks and eats them; John takes the knife and 
keeps it. Some months after they come into possession 
of two or three pounds of nails and half a dozen kites. 
After a long dispute they agree upon what seems to 
them an equitable division, and both parties are satisfied. 
At length, as John one day is showing his knife, James 
cries out, "that knife is as much mine as it is yours ; the 
principle on which we divided last, destroys the bargain 
which we made first." " Give me back those shagbarks 
which you eat up," says John, " and then I '11 talk with 
you about the principle. If you do not, as you eat the 
shagbarks, I '11 keep the knife." I say to Congress, you 
must get Missouri out of the Union, yes, and two or 
three other slave states, before you can put yourself in 
a position to open Nebraska and Kansas to slavery, with- 
out the full consent of the North. 

My main objections to this bill stand on high moral 
grounds. First, it cannot pass without a violation of 
the public faith. I do not deny that Congress may 



31 

possibly have legal power to perpetrate the act. Con- 
gress is national, and is supposed to know no North 
and no South in its great measures. It may say, " I 
do and I undo, and none can hinder me." The lesral- 
ity, the constitutionality of such a position is a question 
for the Supreme Court, for Congress is not quite om- 
nipotent, even speaking politically. It is not a ques- 
tion, for me. So far as my present discourse is con- 
cerned, I agree that Congress has a legal power to an- 
nul its former action on the subject. But what is legal 
power compared with moral obligation ? Was there not 
an understanding between the North and the South 
on the subject of the Missouri Compromise, such as 
could not be violated between man and man without 
gross dishonor. And w\as not Congress privy to it, 
consenting to it, sanctioning it. So the compact was 
viewed at the time, and so it will be viewed forever. 
The South as well as the North looked upon it in this 
light. A passage which has been recently quoted more 
than once in the United States Senate, from Niles' Reo-- 
ister, published in Baltimore, March 11, 1820, giving the 
northern view of the case, is believed to express the 
general sentiment, at the time the act was passed. " It 
is true," says this writer, " the compromise is supported 
only by the letter of the law, repealable by the author- 
ity which enacted it ; but the circumstances of the case 
give to this law a moral force equal to that of a positive 
provision of the Constitution ; and w^e do not hesitate to 
say that the Constitution exists in its observance." The 
repeal of such a law, under the circumstances, involves 
then a violation of public faith, and must lead to the 
most perilous consequences. If this compact can be 
broken, all similar compacts can be broken. No new 



32 

compact can be made, with any certainty of its being 
fulfiled. Those legal enactments and moral under- 
standings by which the South is benefited, and which 
were granted for a consideration, may be repealed at 
any moment by the northern vote, and national guaran- 
tees to the North furnish no security to its interests, 
whenever a few northern representatives and senators 
can be induced, as from ambition or other reasons some 
of them often are, to aid the united action of the South. 
Should great occasions again occur, when compromise 
or civil war is the dread alternative, compromise will be 
impossible. No one will have confidence in it. Con- 
gress will have rendered itself powerless for good, in 
any such emergency. Public morality also will have 
become impotent, and we shall look upon each other as 
not to be trusted. 

There is a principle of morality involved in this bill 
respecting the remaining Indian tribes. A large section 
of the territory under consideration has been sacredly 
pledged to their .independent control and use. They 
have received it from the government instead of lands 
surrendered l)y them on the eastern side of the Missis- 
sippi. During the administration of President Jackson 
and afterwards according to his policy, nineteen tribes 
of them were constrained to leave their old haunts and 
the graves of their fathers, and take up their abode in 
the far off West. Many thought this at the time an act 
of oppression, and in violation of national treaties. The 
lamented Evarts plead powerfuUj' and with an intensity 
of injured feeling and effort, which some supposed cost 
him his life, in behalf of the perishing remnants of an 
older age. But the removal was justified, not only as a 
necessity, but as an act of merc}^, and the only means of 



33 

preserving a race which seemed to be melting entirely 
away. Their new home, far from the habitations of the 
white man, was to be free from his encroachments for- 
ever. But according to the principles of this new bill, 
the Indian must lose his nationality, or be driven on- 
ward, and we know not whither, towards the setting 
sun. All that he has done in fitting up his new home, 
all the progress he has made in civilization, all his hopes 
of stability and security, and of saving the remnants of 
his race, vanish in a moment. Despair awaits him. 
True this bill provides that no encroachment shall be 
made on Indian territory without Indian consent. But 
how much volition will the Indians have in the case ? 
About as much as a little child has, wdien the parent's 
mind is made up beforehand what that volition must 
be, and puts in requisition every art of coaxing, prom- 
ising, scolding and terrifying to bend it to his own. I 
well remember, that one of the agents in the former 
removal was directed to persuade the Indians to it, " by 
moving upon them in the line of their prejudices." 
And they will be moved upon again in the same way, 
and after much resistance, distress, savage fury, perhaps 
blood, they will yield, though it be to their own de- 
struction. One act of consent on their part will be 
sufficient; nor wdll years afterwards of regret, and 
grief, and rage, be of any avail. It w\as a noble declara- 
tion of President Harrison, in his Inaugural Address, 
when he said, " I can conceive of no more suljlime spec- 
tacle, none more likely to propitiate an impartial and 
common Creator, than a rigid adherence to the princi- 
ples of justice on the part of a powerful nation, in its 
transactions with a weaker and uncivilized people, 
whom circumstances havQ placed at its disposal." The 
5 



34 



Indian is a doomed race. He is the remnant of a vast 
population which once overspread this continent. His 
proud spirit is broken, his council fires are going out, 
his blood will soon cease to flow in the veins of man. 
Let it be said thousands of years hence, when this na- 
tion shall exist, perhaps, as Eome, as Greece, as Egypt 
exist, only in history, that America was the protectress 
of this dependent race, and sacredly kept faith with its 
waning tribes till the last war-dance was ended, and the 
red man perished from the earth. 

The passing of this bill would imply an acknowledged 
change in national policy and feelings with regard to 
the permanence and increase of slavery. It would be 
saying to the world, that young America not only re- 
pudiates the old northern anti-slavery doctrines of the 
Revolution, but rejects as obsolete the almost united sen- 
timent of the southern patriots of a former generation. 
It has outgrown the fears, the humanity, the hatred of 
oppression which characterized the councils of Wash- 
ington, of Madison, of Marshall, and of him, the gen- 
erous, far-seeing patriot of a later age, ever ready to 
make sacrifices for the peace of the Union — Henry Clay. 
To their minds, slaver}^ was a moral wrong, a social 
curse, a national disgrace. It was to be limited ; not 
extended, not perpetuated ; but as early as ma}^ be, re- 
moved. In a speech before the American Colonization 
Society, at Washington, in 1827, Mr. Clay said : "If I 
could be instrumental in eradicating this deepest stain 
from the character of our country, and removing all 
cause of reproach on account of it, by foreign nations ; 
if I could only be instrumental in ridding of this foul 
blot that revered State which gave me birth, or that not 
less beloved State which kindly adopted me as her son, 



35 

I would not exchange the proud satisfaction which I 
shoukl enjoy, for the honor of all the triumphs ever 
decreed to the most successful conqueror." In another 
speech, delivered on a similar occasion in 1829, in Ken- 
tucky, he exclaims : " Is there no remedy ? Must we 
endure perpetually all the undoubted mischiefs of a 
state of slavery, as it affects both the free and bond por- 
tion of these states ? What mind is sufficiently exten- 
sive hi its reach, what nerves sufficiently strong to 
contemplate this vast and progressive augmentation, [of 
the slave population] without an awful foreboding of 
the tremendous consequences ? " * In opposition to these 
great sentiments, now we say, let slavery come, let it 
cover our territories, let it exist as a part of our policy, 
and be perpetuated to the remotest generations. 

What might be the ultimate effect of the act contem- 
plated, this is not the place to divine. I believe in an 
Almighty Governor of nations. I have confidence, 
from causes already in operation and the high overrul- 
ino-s of Heaven, that even this bill would redound in 
the end to the advancement of freedom. Depend upon 
it, if passed it will be a bad move for the South. It 
w^as expected that the Mexican war would bring great 
accessions of power to the slave interest. But under 
the control of Him who turneth the councils of men into 
foolishness, the Mexican war gave the heaviest blow to 
slavery wdiicli it has ever received since the formation 
of the Constitution. What has been, might be, will be 
again. But through what convulsions the nation must 
first pass, God only knows. We certainly cannot be jus- 
tified if, by our supineness, we run the dreadful hazard. 
At the same time, we shall stand before the nations of 

* Colton's Life, Vol. I., p. 1?0, 100. 






the earth with unnumbered fingers of scorn pointed 
at us. 

One objection more to the jjassage of this bill. It 
will exasperate the North, and give intensity to agita- 
tion. It will add strength to that indiscriminate aboli- 
tion which has seemed to act from the beginning, 
without sense or reason, or any regard to consequences. 
The country w^ill have no rest under it. It will be fet- 
ters on the limbs of freemen. And whatever may be 
the consequences, American freemen can never be held 
in chains. The slave may be crushed under the heel of 
oppression, but the Norman Saxon will have liberty or 
perish in the struggle for it^ Slave labor and free labor 
cannot exist side by side. When you open those vast 
territories to a slave population, you effectually drive 
out the enterprising freemen. You shackle northern 
liberties. You say to the free agriculturists of New 
England, and New York, and Ohio, bow down, that 
we may go over; and the free agriculturists of New 
England, New York and Ohio, are not the men to lay 
their body as the ground and the street to them that 
go over. You also say to the Northern States, you 
must henceforth tolerate slavery, wherever it shall 
please to take possession, in every inch of territor}^ 
w^hich you now own, or may hereafter acquire. Under 
such a doctrine there will be agitations, and frenzied 
excitements, till the spirit of the old patriots triumphs 
again, or — I dare not contemplate the awful result. 

It was under such convictions as these that the names 
of more than three thousand clergymen were given as 
quickly as the mails could bear them, to a solemn pro- 
test in the name of Almighty God, against this act of 
peril and WTong. There are those who think that the 



37 

ministers of the gospel, knowing little of public affairs, 
should content themselves with feeding their quiet 
flocks, and leaving great national questions to those 
who have the ability to discuss them. But in what 
country do we live ? What blood is it that is rushing 
through our veins ? Are we not descendents of the non- 
conformists of England and of the outspoken old Pu- 
ritans of Plymouth and Massachusetts Bay ? Are w^e not 
sons of those revolutionary sires, of whom the Italian, 
Botta, in his history of our great struggle for independ- 
ence says, that no one cause conduced more to success 
than the opinions and preaching of the American clergy? 
My paternal and maternal grand-parents were ministers 
of the gospel and faithful in their calling. The one 
defended the cause of liberty in the State councils of 
New Hampshire, stirred up his people in many a sermon 
to quit themselves like men, and sent his sons into the 
field ; the other shouldered his musket when he heard 
that the battle was raging on Bunker hill, and hastened 
to the scene of action, that as a surgeon he might bind 
up the wounds of the bleeding soldier, and as a minister 
of Christ, impart the consolations of religion to the 
dying patriot. If any standing on the high places of 
the nation for a time, make bold to ask me why such as 
/ dare to express an opinion on public affairs, I answer : 
first, because I am a man, and honorable senators are no 
more. Second, because I am an American, and would 
not have my rulers, by ambitious compliances, become 
less. Third, because I am a minister of Christ, and 
w^hile I pay my taxes as a citizen and enjoy no more 
civil immunities than others, I have as much right to 
petition Congress, on subjects connected with my profes- 
sional interests, as the iron men, or the coal men, or the 



38 

merchants have to petition Congress on subjects con- 
nected with their employments. At no time in the 
history of the coimtrj^ have the ministers of the gospel 
been behind the foremost in patriotism antl efforts for 
the public good. Ordinarily, it is true, they are but 
little inclined to mingle in the strifes of political men. 
But there are times when inaction on public affairs is 
not, in their opinion, a virtue. They are not afraid to 
speak. In proportion as they bend lower before the 
Almighty, they stand the more erect in the presence of 
their fellow men. As citizens, they have as much at 
stake as others ; as teachers of morality, they have as 
much right to express opinions on questions of national 
right and wrong, as any in the land. As those whose 
office it is to pray and labor for the elevation of their 
race, and the times of universal brotherhood among 
men, the proper business of their life is made to suffer, 
when any public act degrades the nation or works moral 
injury to any class of the people. They are educated 
by the circumstances of their profession, to S23eak boldly, 
whether men will hear or whether they will forbear. 
They would sooner surrender their ministry than give 
up their liberty of speech. And when large bodies of 
New England clergymen speak in the name of the 
Almighty before the nation, let politicians understand, it 
is because they are confident that every attribute in His 
awful nature is on their side. 

Some have passed censure on the "Clerical Protest," 
so called, on the ground that it speaks in the name of 
God, or under acknowledged conviction of responsibility 
to Him, and of exposure to divine vengeance as the con- 
sequence of wrong doing. For the propriety of this style, 
I have nothing to say, except to refer those who pro- 



?>0 

fess to be shocked by it, to their own Jefferson, whose 
language on this subject is, if possible, more <awful. " I 
tremble," said he, " for my country, when I reflect that 
God is just, and that his justice cannot sleep forever." 
And again, " Shall we never learn to be just to our fel- 
low creatures ? Shall we blindly pursue the advantages 
of the moment, and neglect the still but solemn voice of 
God, until — 

'Vengeance in the lurid air, 
Lifts lier red arm exposed and bare.' " 

I wish that these three thousand clergymen could give 
full expression of their feelings to the South. If I could 
deem myself w^orthy to speak in their name, I would 
say : " Brethren and fellow citizens of the Soutli, we are 
not the ftmatics and abettors of political incendiaries 
that you think us. You have heard the fx^enzied lan- 
guage of ultra, vulgar, denunciatory, infidel abolition. 
This is not the voice of New England, least of all, of its 
ministry. We have received from it the only honor 
which it would bestow upon us, the honor of being 
denounced by it. We have been called pro-slavery, 
apologists for slavery, and when we have refused to join 
in its mad tirade, ' dumb dogs that would not bark.' 
We are, indeed, anti-slavery in our principles, and in 
some sense, emancipationists. But we have considered 
your position ; we have had confidence in the good 
intentions of your patriots and Christian men, and have 
learned lessons of moderation and charity. Your fugi- 
tive slave law was odious, disgusting to us. It brouglit 
terror into the hearts of our colored fellow citizens. 
Taking counsel of their fears rather than of reason, they 
fled before it like affrighted sheep when pursued by 
wolves. They saw a kidnapper in every strange face. 



40 

Some of them, or their mothers, had once been slaves. 
Two highly respectable men, deacons of a church of col- 
ored people in Boston, had to be purchased from their 
former owners at the rate of four hundred dollars a piece, 
against the chance of being remanded into slavery. 
And yet, we tolerated this sickening law ! There are 
many colored people whom we respect and love. I see 
before me a man of this character as I preach in this 
pulpit from Sabbath to Sabbath, whom I could no more 
surrender to the slave catcher, than if he were my 
brother.* And yet, most of us cautioned our people 
against violently resisting your law. We submitted to 
it as a dreadful necessity for the sake of the nation, for 
the sake of the pledges of the Constitution, and because 
we had confidence in you, that in the spirit of your 
own flithers, you would rarely after the first moment, 
attempt its execution. 

"Brethren and fellow citizens of the South, manifest to 
us the generous heart of your owm great patriots ; show 
us something of the tenderness and justice tow^ards the 
weak which belong to you as men, abstain from un- 
natural attempts to force the dark flood of slavery over 
regions not yet contaminated thereby ; deplore the evil, 
as your fathers did, which exists among you and en- 
dangers us all ; take measures for its limitation, and so 
fiir as may be in your power for its ultimate removal, 
and we Avill not annoy you by demanding impossibili- 
ties. We will interpose, so far as we can, between you 
and any among us who would infringe on your rights. 
Our voice, our hearts, our purse shall serve you in de- 
liverino; the whole of this land from the greatest curse 
which has ever befallen it. 

* A colored man, fcr many yenr* n faithful servant in the aiithor's family. 



41 

" Gentlemen planters of the South, we have looked 
upon you as haughty, unperious, perhaps passionate ; 
sometimes carrying your ideas of self respect beyond 
the dictates of sober judgment, but having great and 
generous qualities, and being withal the soul of honor. 
We have admired your statesmen ; to our imagination 
there was a grandeur about them, a patriotism and a 
magnanimity which covered many imperfections. But 
let them pause ! If they perpetrate this deed of in- 
justice, if for any reason, however aided by northern 
treachery their ancient faith is once violated, the charm 
will be broken, and instead of chivalrous men we shall 
see in them only covenant breakers and oppressors. It 
cannot be. Voices among themselves have already 
been raised against the sacrilegious act. Southern fidel- 
ity, I believe, will put its solemn veto upon it. But if 
disappointed, if our ancient confidence must perish, we 
will raise a monument for our posterity over its grave, 
and Avrite upon it this brief but mournful inscription, 
^Southern honor not to be trusted.'" 

I have spoken of the South as if the principal danger 
in reference to the passage of the Nebraska bill, was 
from that quarter. But one thing is certain, if this act 
of injustice is ever consummated, it will not be by the 
united vote of the South. The responsibilit}^, the guilt 
of it, will rest chiefly on northern men ; not on the peo- 
ple, the masses of the North, but on individual politicians, 
the leaders, perhaps, of a party, who, for reasons known 
to themselves and to God, are willing to throw the 
country into a ferment, and peril the interests of free- 
dom for all coming time. Has the South sought this 
treacherous boon at their hands ? Has the South 
thrown this firebrand into the Capitol of the Nation ? 



42 



Will the South respect the authors of this incendiary 
attempt? Does the Sovith wish to renew the excite- 
ments and dangers of 1850 ? The South may receive 
the proffered gift, though I yet believe that there is 
honor enough in that part of the country to spurn it. 
But should the South accept the agency of northern 
instruments in such a business, will she not at the same 
time despise them ? When they have done this base 
work for her, will she not throw them aside " as tools 
broken in the using ? " How will they appear before 
the nations of the earth ? What will history say of 
them hereafter ? How will posterity regard them ? 
For the South it may find apologies, for northern 
treachery it can express nothing but contempt. 

This is a day of fasting and humiliation before God, 
and never had we more cause. The wrongs which the 
African and the Indian races have suffered at our 
hands, the storm in which our ship of State reels to 
and fro and staggers like a drunken man, the possi- 
bilities of the future, too terrible to be contemplated, 
should lead us to bow ourselves to the very dust before 
the Almighty. 

But humiliation is not all. The times demand pru- 
dence, patriotism and wisely directed action. What 
shall we do? 1. One thing we must not do. We must 
not exasperate the South by indiscriminate denuncia- 
tion. We must not insist on immediate impossibilities. 
We must not imagine for a moment that there is no 
patriotism and no piety south of the Potomac. We 
must not encourage that perpetual tirade of obloquy 
which is visited on the southern churches. Misrepre- 
sentation, ignorant, undistinguishing reproaches, mani- 
festing no sympathy and appreciating no difficulty, can 



43 

do no good. Tlicy have been fully tried, and have 
made the matter constantly worse and worse. Is it not 
so ? Is Virginia now on the point of freeing her slaves ? 
Could debates like those of her legislature in 1832 be 
reproduced in 1854, and be published, and circulated 
all over the Commonwealth, and be discussed by every 
slave capable of reading or hearing them? Is Ken- 
tucky where she was twenty years ago ? Have not the 
hands on the dial plate of liberty gone backwards 
even in those old states where slavery had almost ceased 
to be a cherished institution and where the pecuniary 
motive was fast becoming favorable to manumission ? I 
would abridge no man's liberty of speech. I know how 
much, from hearts full of humanity, ought to have been 
spoken, and how much has been wisely spoken. But I 
verily believe that if the entire North had held its 
tongue on the subject of abolition in the states,' for the 
last quarter of a century, and given southern responsi- 
bilit}^ its full play, the prospect of early emancipation 
would be brighter than it is at present. Such is my 
conviction of the folly and sin of many northern men 
and northern associations on this subject. 

2. Our whole bearing and manner should be that of 
a people who breathe nothing but the mountain airs of 
liljertj^, and mean, as far as possible, to impart their in- 
vio-oratino; influences to all other men ; at all events to 
preserve ourselves and our posterity from the pestilen- 
tial atmosphere of a bond population. 

3. Let the North be true to herself, Arm and deter- 
mined but honorable and conciliatory, proposing to bear 
her full proportion in the required sacrifices, acting out 
generously the entire sentiment of our text, and she 
will have nothing to fear. 



44 



On the other hand, we must not sleep. We must not 
suffer commercial gains, I speak to commercial men, 
or political hopes, I speak to political men, to blind 
our moral perceptions, or produce indiiference. While 
we keep our own pledges towards the South, we must 
insist that there shall be no violation of faith on her 
part towards us. We must show the northern politician 
that betrays the cause of freedom for any reason, that 
by such acts he digs the grave of his ambitious hopes 
and buries them. 

4. One simple duty but too often violated among us 
should receive attention. The negroes around us are to 
be treated as men ; not paraded into public assemblies 
and prominent positions where they cannot feel at 
home ; not forced into the social gatherings of those 
whose company, want of culture, custom, their own taste 
forbids them to enjoy ; not, on the other hand, excluded 
from jDublic conveyances, shrunk from as a contamina- 
tion, or passed by with neglect, but treated with that 
sympathy and consideration which we should desire in 
their place. The African is a good citizen ; he generally 
goes for law and order ; he takes sides with the true 
gentleman against turbulent vulgarity. He has a ten- 
der heart. When Mungo Park was in Africa, on one 
occasion without food in a region of wild beasts, and a 
storm arising, he sat down under a tree dejected and 
ready to die. A negro woman took him to her hut, she 
and her attendants prepared him a supper, and made 
him comfortable for the night. Then resuming their 
task, spinning cotton, as th^work went on, one of the 
young women sung, in a sweet and plaintive air, an ex- 
tempore song, of which this is given as a true transla- 
tion : — 



45 



The winds roared find the rains fell, 
The^Mor wlille man, faint and weary, 
Came and sat under our tree, — 
He has no motiier to bring him milk, 
No wife to grind liis corn. 



The rest followed in chorus, — 

Let us pifij the white man ; 

No mother has he to bring him milk. 

No wife to grind his corn. 

This is the African heart towards the white man, 
when kindly treated by him, notwithstanding all the 
wrongs he has received at his hands. 

5. We should hold ourselves in readiness to adopt 
any measures for the benefit of this much injured race 
which Providence may hereafter make practicable. It 
is a matter of congratulation that a new republic of Af- 
rican freemen has been called into existence in our day, 
on the shores of their father land. There, thousands of 
emancipated slaves are enjoying all the rights of free 
citizenship, and by their advancement in knowledge, in 
w^ealth, and in the science of self-government, are prov- 
ing to the world that the black man is capable of eleva- 
tion, and of sustaining for himself republican institutions. 
Liberia is a beacon light on those dark shores, promisino- 
social regeneration eventually to the entire African 
race. Let there be so much as one free nation of Afri- 
cans on earth, intelligent, commercial, capable of mak- 
ing itself respected, and the days of slavery will be 
hastened on to their termination. 

In this country it is destined to cease. Its termina- 
tion exists in the decrees of God ; prophecy assures us of 
it. The religion of Christ, the spirit of the age, the pro- 
gress of man, the opinion of Europe and the world, 
the voice of enlightened conscience North and Soutli, 



46 

together with local causes which we have not now time 
to develope, are all against its continuance. It will 
cease ; and He whose province it is to bring good out 
of evil, will turn the curse into a blessing, at least to the 
oppressed race. As a consequence of slavery, Africa 
will be lifted up, and will come to take her stand as a 
great nation, on a level with the great nations of the 
earth. 

Slaveholding will cease. If we are wise, patriotic, and 
truly benevolent, acting on the principle of our text, 
peaceably ; if too impatient and violent, by scenes at 
the prospect of which imagination stands appalled. If 
we would avoid those scenes, if we would not hazard the 
horrors of a civil and servile war, if we would not see or 
have our children see a host of belHgerent nations on 
the soil which we now call our country, we must not 
reject the lights of wisdom which have come down to 
us from the patriots of the Revolution, and which shone 
brilliantly and through the whole life of those two states- 
men by whose leading agency the compromises of 1850 
were confirmed. The times demand prudent men, far- 
seeing men, decided and fearless men, self-sacrificing 
men. The agitated country looks round for statesmen, 
to stand forth, with motives pure and open as the da}^- 
light, and say, "I shall do justice to the whole countr}'-, 
according to the best of my ability, in all I say, and act 
for the good of the whole country, in all I do. I mean 
to do this in absolute disregard of personal consequences. 
Let the consequences be what they will, I am careless. 
No man can suffer too much, and no man can fall too 
soon, if he suffer or if he fall in defence of the liberties 
and Constitution of his country." 

We have no Webster now to stand in the breach and 



47 

receive on his noble breast the missiles which seemed to 
be aimed, blindly or otherwise, at the heart of the Union. 
He suffered, was it not too much ; he fell, was it not too 
soon, though he suffered and fell in defence of the lib- 
erties and Constitution of his country ? He lies as he 
fell, with the robes of his patriotism around him ; the 
Union his monument, self-sacrifice his epitaph. Had 
that man lived there would have been no occasion for 
my discourse. Kise, great patriot, rise ! mighty shade, 
stand forth ! Before that voice of thunder and eye of 
fire, ambition would cower and hide itself, justice take 
its throne, and public faith sway her calm sceptre over 
the land ! 

I am still hopeful with regard to the future of our 
country. There are indeed great causes of solicitude. 
This one evil which we have been contemplating looks 
dark and portentous. Ambitious men will make use of 
it as a means of self-promotion, though it be amidst the 
bitter conflicts of a divided nation. But prayer, from 
all our temples and every Christian heart, will rise to 
heaven. The God of our fathers will control the des- 
tiny of their sons, and we shall yet become the best and 
foremost nation of the world. 

I conclude in the language of Milton : " thou, our 
most certain hope and defence," deliver this land from 
its treacherous foes'; "let them all take counsel together 
and let it come to nought ; let them decree and do 
thou cancel it ; let them gather themselves and be scat- 
tered ; let them embattle themselves and be broken ; 
let them embattle and be broken for thou art with us. 
Amen ! " 



JOHN FORD, PRINTER, 

CAMBBIDGEFOKT. 



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